


Lights, Camera, Hitman

by pragma (CarlileLovesAnime)



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-06-28 06:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19806184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarlileLovesAnime/pseuds/pragma
Summary: What became an international media sensation started as four friends posting their antics on YouTube.





	1. The Proliferation of Bad Ideas

**Author's Note:**

> back on my khr bullshit!!!!! it's been so long :')
> 
> this is for khr week 2019, brought to you by @dailykateko on tumblr. big ol' thanks to paige (@haganenoelric on tumblr) for beta-reading. and my husband austin for putting up with my weeb shit.

Travel back to the year 2015. Picture the suburban bubble of Namimori in the Chugoku region of Japan. Quaint, touristy ports to the north; Matsue to the east.

In a townhouse in the middle of Namimori’s residential block lived single mom Nana Sawada. Her late husband Ieyasu had been slain by yakuza five years beforehand, leaving a dubiously procured fortune in a trust fund. Nana lived off the interest, as well as whatever supplemental income she earned from nannying local kids.

“It felt as though the critical part of my brain was switched off,” Nana admitted.

The same went for her 14-year-old son Tsunayoshi “Tsuna” Sawada. A late bloomer, young Tsuna preferred reading manga, playing videogames and taking naps to studying, playing sports and socializing. He often skipped his classes at Namimori Middle School to laze around the house.

“Most people did not like me,” Tsuna said. “Of that I was sure.”

Tsuna had been plagued by a lack of direction, and Nana -- in the midst of “recovering long-lost self-esteem” -- neither recognized this, nor was equipped to relieve it.

At the same time, the middle of Paul and Anita Pavone’s three children began attending ninth grade at Namimori Middle School.

Known by his nickname “Reborn,” the junior Pavone took to his instant popularity like a fish to water.

“He always knew exactly what to say,” according to former classmate Shoto Maeda. “Everyone wanted to be his friend. He had a way of getting you anything you needed, whether it was information or something you lost on the street.”

Reborn wore tailored three-piece suits and drank espresso. He kept a chameleon and some exotic roaches as pets. He had lived in four different countries on three continents. He spoke fluent English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese -- and was impossibly articulate in each.

And as interesting as his young life was, he also had a penchant for tall tales.

On a family trip to India, he had gotten lost in the woods for a month, and lived like Mowgli from  _ Jungle Book _ . He’d sailed across the Mediterranean singlehandedly at the age of 12. Both of his parents were missionaries, but the  _ real _ reason they lived overseas was because, in elementary school, Reborn had witnessed a gang murder and the family was forced to flee for safety. He led schoolmates, teachers and even neighbors to believe all this and more.

“Reborn always tells stories,” his older sister Pepper said. “He’s been telling stories since he could talk. That’s just how he operates -- that’s how he learned to get attention, I think.”

“We had no reason to doubt him,” said Maeda.

“Sometimes I ran into people we both knew, and they’d be like, ‘Sorry to hear about your illness,’ or, ‘Congratulations on your brother winning the tournament,’” Pepper said, “And it was never true. But I never said anything because I didn’t care. It was funny.”

The Sawada family knew firsthand how dangerous organized crime could be, even when indirectly involved. When classmate Reborn was overheard casually mentioning the Italian mafia as an interest, “He actually scared me,” Tsuna said. “I wanted him to stay far away.”

But one fellow student recommended Reborn reach out to Tsuna, based on the rumor that Tsuna’s dad used to be a mobster.

Tsuna reacted to Reborn with apathy, if not outright hostility. Then a breakthrough came in August, and they began spending time together. The two often traded anecdotes and facts about organized crime, so much that Tsuna’s shame and apprehension gradually lessened.

“For the first time, I owned what had happened to me,” Tsuna said. “Someone listened.”

Like Tsuna, Kyoko Sasagawa had no clear direction for the future. She earned high grades and served as class president. She enjoyed reading political and philosophical books. She had recently become a vegetarian. “I didn’t know what I wanted,” she said, “So I tried everything that interested me.”

She felt the need to compensate for a somewhat lonely home life. Her parents were often out of town on work assignments, leaving Kyoko and her older brother Ryohei in the care of their personal trainer aunt.

“We always had the TV on, even when no one was watching,” Kyoko recalled.

Kyoko was arguably the most popular girl in the ninth grade class. Tsuna, who was among the least popular, had had romantic feelings for her since the beginning of the school year, when the two first met. Were it not for Reborn’s wingmanning, “She might never have spoken to me,” Tsuna said.

He taught her to slow down and spend time taking care of herself. She encouraged him to continue his education and even tutored him during high school entrance exams. By the beginning of tenth grade, they had acknowledged their mutual feelings and begun dating.

As the son of an Italian accountant and the Japanese punk rocker known as Lavina, Alessio Gokudera lived a somewhat charmed early childhood. And then everything fell apart: when Gokudera was 13, his father’s ex-wife took out a hit on Lavina, which resulted in Lavina being paralyzed from the waist down. Mom was unable to take care of herself, and would not be able to resume her career. Dad divorced her. Gokudera’s half-sister Alandra left home. Gokudera himself behaved badly in his father’s custody.

Giuliano Shamal had just accepted a job offer as a neurosurgeon at a hospital in Chugoku, and offered to bring his nephew Gokudera along. “Please take him,” was the response. Gokudera began tenth grade at Namimori High, using his Japanese middle name, Hayato, socially.

“Gokudera scared me almost as much as Reborn did,” Tsuna admitted. “I think it was the resting bitch face.” But like the others, Gokudera soon fell in with the group.

The overall concept of the make-believe was attributed to Reborn. In their fantasy, the mafia was one big game -- a vast machination of arbitrary rules and fake history. Tsuna was the next in line to inherit control of the facetiously named Vongola (“clam,” in Italian) Family. The current head of the Vongola, Timoteo, had hired the mysterious former assassin Reborn to tutor Tsuna in the ways of mafia leadership. And local delinquent Gokudera was Tsuna’s slavishly devoted right-hand-man-in-training.

Tsuna wanted nothing to do with his destiny. His only goal was to impress and protect his crush, Kyoko. But with every one of his tutor’s ridiculous lessons, the simple life Tsuna desired moved further and further out of reach.

“You think about it objectively, and ‘playing mafia’ is so childish, it’s beneath you,” Kyoko explained. “In the moment, though, it was fun. It was our thing.”

There was no single, serendipitous moment of resolve -- none that any of them can remember -- to turn their conversations into something more. But the friends began video-recording their antics. They believed the first few dozen hours of footage were too embarrassing to show.

“Either we got better or we just got over ourselves,” Kyoko said. Once they reached that phase, they collaboratively upped the production value: Kyoko taught herself to edit clips in iMovie and later Adobe Premiere, and Gokudera composed a theme song.

As they made videos daily, the people around them became involved.

There were schoolmates. Hana Kurokawa was Kyoko’s sassy, unassuming childhood friend. The airheaded baseball star Takeshi Yamamoto was Gokudera’s reluctant rival. Nami High head prefect and long-suffering misanthrope Kyoya Hibari provided additional challenges.

Family joined as well. Kyoko’s brother Ryohei, an aspiring boxer, assumed a role. Gokudera’s half-sister Alandra, who went by the name Bianchi in the show, moved into town, bringing her stepson-to-be Lambo. Some parents and guardians made appearances as themselves.

Tsuna’s nosy neighbor Haru Miura inserted herself into Tsuna and company’s operations. One of Nana’s young clients played a “Chinese” immigrant and aspiring assassin named I-Pin, who sought Reborn’s tutelage. Elementary school-aged neighbor Fuuta Miyato played a soft-spoken psychic. Eric York, a 24-year-old local English teacher, played Dino Cavallone, Reborn’s bumbling former student and new head of the Cavallone crime family. Reborn convinced neighbors and classmates to appear as side characters, such as Maeda’s stint as the obnoxious Longchamp Naito. Each cast member put great effort into their role, coming up with unique quirks and backstory.

Eventually, the original four showed the videos to their class as well as cast members’ families. Slight “cringe factor” aside, the wide-open premise and character-based humor earned praise.

“I went up to Reborn afterward, and I was like, ‘You should put these online,’” Maeda said, “‘They’re hilarious.’” Maeda, of course, was neither the first, nor the last person to make this suggestion. And so, Reborn and Kyoko created dedicated accounts on video platforms and social media under the series’ working title, _Katekyo Hitman Reborn!_.


	2. 2 Much, 2 Fast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "just when i thought i was out, they pull me back in"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> same, al pacino, same.
> 
> thanks again to paige and austin!!

In one episode, Tsuna took the unwitting Kyoko on a date to the zoo, only to find that his overbearing friends were following them. In another, Gokudera, Yamamoto, Ryohei and Haru attempted to teach Tsuna how to swim -- with limited success. Lambo went missing and the teens were tasked with finding him. The entire cast got roped into an epic snowball fight that lasted two episodes. There was a traditional Halloween test of courage in a graveyard. There was a talent show. The mafia plotline only occasionally reared its head: Tsuna would awkwardly attempt to bribe businessmen at Reborn’s instruction, or Reborn would scrap with challengers to the World’s Greatest Hitman throne.

The team ran on a combination of moderate audience support and pure passion. Fifty-some-odd episodes in and about to begin the 11th grade, they struggled for new ideas. “We would sit and brainstorm for hours,” Tsuna said.

The show had set up a rich world with a huge cast, so they figured, why not raise the stakes to keep the story interesting?

A longer subplot was constructed. A young man named Mukuro Rokudo wanted revenge against the entire mafia world, and so he decided to provoke the powerful Vongola Family to start an underground civil war. His gang kidnapped Fuuta Miyato as an informant and Kyoko as a hostage. Then came mysterious attacks on suspected Vongola associates -- many of whom were mere classmates.

Tsuna, Reborn, Gokudera, Bianchi and Yamamoto gathered to storm Rokudo’s gang’s base in Kokuyo. What followed were the most intense fights yet, hallucinations, a faked suicide, “demonic” possessions, and emotional triumph, all taking place on the grounds of an abandoned amusement park.

These several episodes would be known by fans as the “Kokuyo Arc,” and marked a permanent tonal shift for  _ KHR! _ . “For once, the plot had consequences,” said Alandra Fontanegro (Bianchi). “It was new and exciting, and it also felt like a bigger commitment. Everyone worked harder.”

The series blew up.

Many factors contributed to the sudden increase in popularity. More people discovered the series during the short hiatus, and then all viewers, old and new, watched the update at once, making the video “viral” and attracting even higher traffic. The Kokuyo Arc was more polished than previous episodes, which lent legitimacy to the production. Longer, interconnected fights, from which characters suffered injury, tugged at fans’ heartstrings. Another selling point was Ken Okubo playing the new villain.

Okubo -- a second-year acting student at Kyoto Seika -- was visiting his family in Namimori when he met Gokudera. “We got to talking about his friends’ YouTube project,” Okubo said. “He pitched the basic premise of the Kokuyo Arc to me, and it interested me so much, I watched the whole series that night, and asked to be part of it the next day.”

Okubo was slightly older and more technically skilled than the main cast, and with his notable height, deep voice and strong jawline, he commanded a hypnotic presence. It was obvious how much he enjoyed playing Mukuro Rokudo.

His classmates from Kyoto Seika played other Kokuyo Gang members -- Ken Joshima, Chikusa Kakimoto, Mako Maekawa (“M.M.”). Okubo’s mentor Saburo Nakahara appeared in one episode as Birds.

Okubo also introduced his sister Nagisa and her friend Shoichi Irie, both aspiring musicians, to the production. “No one else gave me input on the score, or helped me with it at all, until Irie and [Nagisa] Okubo joined,” Gokudera said.

The castmates from Kyoto Seika continued to consult with the  _ KHR! _ crew after their time in the show’s spotlight ended. Rokudo appeared in every subsequent plot arc, as did Joshima and Kakimoto.

Ken Okubo went on to win the Japan Internet Media Association’s 2017 Best Supporting Actor award for his role in  _ KHR! _ \-- and naturally, this brought the series into an even broader limelight.

“To tell the truth,” Tsuna Sawada said, “I was not very comfortable with the Kokuyo Arc. The shift into seriousness was too sudden for my tastes.”

“It was all staged, of course, but even acting like I had been kidnapped and forced to fight -- that was traumatic for me,” Kyoko Sasagawa said.

Following the conclusion to the Kokuyo Arc, a special, double-long episode had major characters gather at the Sawada house to clear the air. This became a hallmark episode for character growth. Tsuna divulged his mafia ties to Kyoko and Haru, and apologized for putting Kyoko in harm’s way. Bianchi and Gokudera revealed the tragic story behind their family. Ryohei and Haru expressed their guilt for not being around during the Kokuyo raid. And most controversially, Yamamoto came out as gay.

Yamamoto was gay in real life, and his castmates had known for a few months at the time, but he was not considered publicly “out.” He had made the decision early on for his character to be gay, so that he could be as authentic to the real version of Takeshi Yamamoto as possible.

“Saying it on camera was nerve-wracking as all get-out,” Yamamoto said, “But no one freaked out or asked inappropriate questions or purposely distanced themselves. They accepted it -- accepted me right away. That had been their real-life reactions too, but to have their characters set an example of how to treat someone like me, when homosexuality was considered taboo in the public eye…. That meant so much.”

This proved cathartic for both viewers and cast members. “In one way, we were acting in front of a camera,” Kyoko said. “But in another way, we were tacitly re-committing to our project and to each other.”

A few more comedic, one-off episodes padded the end of the aftermath. The series gained more and more views. Fan-run blogs and forums cropped up on various web platforms. Some journalistic venues ran stories on  _ KHR! _ and conducted interviews with cast members.

As much as the cast and crew appreciated the success, “a lot of fans didn’t take into account that we were all kids working on this show,” Kyoko said. In order to devote more time to education and family matters, the cast and crew announced a hiatus that would last two months -- which, in Internet time, felt like forever.

“I was working so hard, eating and sleeping so poorly, I actually gave myself appendicitis,” Gokudera reported. “In one scene after the climactic fight [in Kokuyo], my character had to be rushed to the hospital. That really happened to me. That was not acting. The script said it was because I’d been hurt in a fight, but in reality, it was stress-induced.”

The formerly sedentary Tsuna had to keep a strict schedule of activity every waking minute in order to keep pace. He often relegated homework to the end of the night, and would fall asleep at his desk before finishing assignments. According to Nana Sawada, “The mafia game had helped him socially and emotionally, so I could not bring myself to take that away from him. I just told Tsuna to attend classes and not get in trouble. Every mother wants her child to receive high marks in school, but by this time, I had adjusted my expectations.”

“Because of the higher standards and the increase in popularity, there was incredible pressure to produce, and the project became unwieldy,” Haru Miura said. When she brought home a low-scoring quiz, her father forbade her from participating in the show until her grades improved.

“There was concern from my parents about the effect of the videos on our futures,” Yamamoto said.

Ryohei Sasagawa and Kyoya Hibari faced particular challenges in making time for the show as high school third-years. Sasagawa was well establishing himself as a professional boxer. Hibari needed time to study for university entrance exams.

Nami High English teacher Eric York (Dino Cavallone) endured scrutiny from the school for his involvement in the series. York said, “If so much as one more thing had gone wrong, I would have lost my job.”

Collectively, the cast and crew began to lose steam, and considered leaving the show to end.

Reborn spoke with fans and the press more often than his peers, and maintained the official  _ KHR!  _ social media channels. His castmates felt grateful for his dedication. “Somehow he found time,” Tsuna said. “We might have quit without him. It was uncanny, how passionate and energetic he was.”

“The Japanese half of me gives him the benefit of the doubt -- say, Reborn felt ownership over the project because his name was in the title,” Gokudera said. “But if you ask my loudmouth Italian half, my theory is, he was so obsessed with the fantasy, he had to involve everyone around him.”

Empowered by Okubo’s award nomination, Reborn rallied the crew into resuming production of the show about halfway through their hiatus. York compared the response to a quote from the mob film  _ The Godfather III _ : “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”


	3. (Not Just a) Flash in the Pan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Neither of us come from mob families, but looking at our wedding, you would have guessed otherwise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my cat is yelling at me as i post this. she's saying hi.
> 
> beta-reading credit to paige!

By this point,  _ Katekyo Hitman Reborn! _ had earned a fair amount of money from advertising and sponsorships, in no small part thanks to the business acumen of Reborn Pavone and Eric York. Most of this money cycled back into production: Reborn convinced Nami High to rent out certain areas of the school building as sets, since they were filming during summer vacation, and he hired freelancers for post-production help.

The further increase in quality provided bigger returns.  _ KHR! _ found an audience overseas -- particularly, in Italy.

One of the Pavone family’s favorite television programs was the middlingly successful Italian soap opera  _ Il Tacito _ , and months of YouTubing had empowered Reborn to contact the showrunners. The timing could not have been better:  _ Il Tacito _ had just wrapped up filming its sixth season.

The “Varia Arc” that followed presented a new plot at a more manageable pace, both in terms of shooting and production schedules and in terms of the show’s format. The retiring Vongola boss’s adopted son, Xanxus, challenged Tsuna’s claim to family leadership. Reborn, who saw Xanxus’s potential for tyranny, forced the reluctant Tsuna Sawada to defend his inheritance. Reborn was also tasked with assembling a team of “Guardians” to oppose Xanxus’s team.

Varia members included Tommaso Sabbata as the coldhearted killer prince Belphegor, Rosario di Rossi as Reborn’s enigmatic old frenemy Mammon, Angelo Gobbino as the booksmart and street-dumb Leviathan, Edoardo Orsini as the flamboyant “team mom” Lussuria, Marco Caprio as the perpetually stressed-out swordsman Superbi Squalo, and Manuel Gerou as their brooding leader Xanxus. Another  _ Il Tacito _ castmate, Nella Dinapoli, guest-starred as the Cervello, a group of referees who all happened to look and act alike.

“Some of us weren’t set to appear on [ _ Il Tacito _ ] again for a couple months, if we were coming back at all,” said Gobbino, “So we could spare the time.”

Caprio’s favorite thing was the opportunity to reach an international audience. He traveled around Japan for months after shooting wrapped up for the Varia Arc.

“I am Italian and my character was Italian, but I tried to capture a sort of Japanese sentiment in my performance,” he said. “I wanted to include elements like loyalty, devotion and self-sacrifice -- think the Japanese shogunate, think seppuku.”

A Seven Deadly Sins theme ran through the respective interactions between opposing Guardians. Fights included such impossible feats as Ryohei Sasagawa using the crystalized beads of his own sweat to shoot at Lussuria, and the Cervello setting loose a great white shark in Squalo and Takeshi Yamamoto’s arena.

Kyoko Sasagawa said, “The Varia Arc brought back the fantasy and fakery, the idea of arbitrary self-seriousness, to our interpretation of the mafia.”

Orsini also appreciated the parodic spirit, having grown up in Palermo, Italy at the height of Cosa Nostra power. Others, like Sabbata, had been hoping for a more authentic take.

“Even though I had fun messing around as Bianchi,” Alandra Fontanegro admitted, “I had to dial back my involvement in the show, for obvious personal reasons.” Her real-life wedding to Romeo Boveri was just around the corner.

Bee Yamauchi, a half-British teenager, would play a new character named Basil who had supposedly been sent to Japan by Tsuna’s late father. Previously, Yamauchi had run a fan blog for the show. “I basically annoyed the cast into giving me a part,” he said.

“Yamauchi had interesting theories about the plot,” Yamamoto said, “So Reborn thought to add him to the team.”

Nagisa Okubo transitioned from scoring music behind the scenes to acting in front of the camera as Chrome Dokuro, a Guardian and suspected Rokudo associate.

“I was so excited, I had all my character’s development planned from the beginning,” Okubo said.

“Before this, video recording was only a hobby of mine,” Haru Miura said. She had been the director of cinematography in addition to playing herself on-screen. “Having both jobs was like a tug-of-war.” The original script called for her character to be a Guardian, but Miura gave the role to Kyoko Sasagawa to focus more on the technical aspects of the show. “I took pride in the higher video quality.”

The formerly ancillary score composer Shoichi Irie took more responsibility for the show’s music so that Hayato Gokudera could work on practical effects. Yamamoto and Nagisa Okubo contributed more to the writing process.

With the bigger scope came bigger problems. The fight between Gokudera and Belphegor was scripted to cause great collateral damage -- hence why it was one of the last parts of the Varia Arc to be filmed. Nami High School suffered as a result.

“The last thing typically on a teenager’s mind is liability insurance,” said attorney Masamune Horikochi.

When high school administrators discovered the mess the day after shooting the fight, the show’s set contract was terminated. Work froze completely as the cast and crew were forced to clean and rebuild the school’s second floor. This project ate up the remainder of summer break and put production behind schedule. Half the guest stars from  _ Il Tacito _ had to fly back to Italy and return later to film the final few scenes.

“We were almost expelled,” Tsuna admitted.

This was, unfortunately, the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of York’s position at Nami High. “I was called into the office,” he said, “And given no time to say goodbye. I had to get my stuff and get out of the country.” Though he had finished shooting scenes with Dino Cavallone by this time, the show would have to accommodate his absence in the future.

Dinapoli remarked that working on  _ KHR!  _ was unlike working on any other show. “It felt like a con, in some ways. Like a house built on popsicle sticks. Yes, we had cool effects and competent teenage actors, but we also had no real working conditions.”

Gerou alleged that Reborn had offered payment to the guest stars “in an amount equal to appropriate Italian Actors’ Union wages,” but he was not fully compensated until nearly five years after  _ KHR! _ ended. “I stopped expecting anything. And then, out of nowhere, I got a check in the mail, no return address.”

“[Reborn] said he would take care of it,” Tsuna said upon making this discovery. “No one asked questions.”

Some opposition to Reborn did come, however, regarding Fontanegro’s wedding. Originally, she and Reborn had made a verbal agreement to include video footage from the ceremony and reception in the show. The upcoming wedding was referenced at least every other episode in the Varia Arc and was meant to serve as another season finale palette cleanser.

Then Reborn suggested turning the wedding into a more violent affair: a sting, a betrayal, “something along those lines” to leave fans hanging on for more. Fontanegro refused vehemently, and everyone took her side. The deal to include wedding footage was off.

She did not have sufficient notice to cancel her videographer. “I told [the wedding videography company], though, I said, ‘If anybody other than myself, my husband or our parents tries to get ahold of this footage, do not give it to them.’” Her groom went so far as to hire security for the event. “I swear,” she said, “Neither of us come from mob families, but looking at our wedding, you would have guessed otherwise.”

The new villains and progressing plot resonated with fans, just like the case with the previous arc. Things may have been falling apart for the cast and crew, but viewers did not take notice. In fact, the show’s following only grew.

This caught the attention of one Daichi Asahara, a producer at JP Studio ONE. “My grandchildren were obsessed with  _ KHR! _ , so I wanted to see what the fuss was all about,” he reported. “They showed me two or three episodes, and then I called the office… I said, ‘You have got to see this.’”


	4. The Rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Before, we just did what we wanted, not caring what anybody thought as long as we were having fun. But now, we had to answer to network executives.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for your help, paige! and thank you to austin even though he found this chapter a lot less funny than i did.

Reborn Pavone was gung ho to bring the show to television -- it legitimized the endeavor. Takeshi Yamamoto and Haru Miura wanted to jump at the opportunity. Hayato Gokudera also liked the idea; behind-the-scenes duties could be outsourced to professionals, so he and other members of the main cast could devote time to acting and other responsibilities.

Tsuna Sawada, however, needed convincing. He disbelieved that their mafia game could be worth this much. The weight of the decision overwhelmed him.

The proposal was as follows: JP Studio ONE would own television broadcast and syndication rights to  _ Katekyo Hitman Reborn! _ . Episodes made prior to the signing date were to be removed from free web video platforms and added to the roster of shows on the company’s flagship channel, MajorTV, as well as the network’s digital streaming service JPSOnline. Cast and crew of the old episodes would receive 35% residual earnings. For all future episodes, the company would pay each person involved in the show ¥3,500 per hour of work, in addition to their share of 35% residuals -- though, these episodes had to be made using the studio’s resources, and belonged to the company.

“The main concern was that the network would shortchange these children,” said Masamune Horikochi. As soon as the network had reached out to her son and his friends, Nana Sawada retained Horikochi to accompany the teens to Tokyo and represent their legal interests. “Especially for newcomers in the entertainment industry,” Horikochi added, “Negotiating favorable contracts can be difficult. Outsiders have no standard to measure their work’s value.”

The network invited the main cast and crew to tour their offices in Tokyo and, if everything went according to plan, finalize their agreement. After the tour, the group convened to discuss the terms amongst themselves. The conversation lasted into the small hours of the morning.

Kyoko Sasagawa based her counterargument on principle: She believed that removing the show from YouTube dealt an irrevocable blow to its accessibility, and ergo, the spirit of the project. “It felt wrong to force our audience to pay for our content, considering that we had no budget at the start,” she said.

With Horikochi’s help, the parties compromised. While JP Studio ONE retained broadcast and syndication rights of full-length episodes, any “non-canonical” content produced by the  _ KHR! _ team would belong to the  _ KHR! _ team, provided that the content was created without any use of the network’s resources. Further writing clarified the distinction between proper episodes and such spinoff material.

To placate Sasagawa and take advantage of the contract loophole, Miura came up with plans for the first of three series that would replace lost content on their YouTube channel. Miura would interview one cast member at a time about their special interests outside the show. A small set was constructed inside the Sasagawas’ house over the next weekend, and the recordings began.

“I called it  _ HaruHaru Interview Corner _ because I thought the cutesy name would distinguish it from the show,” Miura said.

Some used the interview as a platform for discussing larger issues, like Kyoko addressing climate change, or Nagisa Okubo advocating for pet adoption. Others were more lighthearted. Bee Yamauchi (Basil) revealed his multi-step hair care routine. Alandra Fontanegro Boveri (Bianchi) explained the significance behind each of her tattoos.

“The greatest accomplishment for the interview series was getting Kyoya Hibari to speak for the whole five minutes,” Miura joked. Hibari mostly talked about his favorite foods.

Miura wanted to give every character, no matter how minor, at least one actor interview, but there was one big holdout. Reborn allegedly told Miura that he did not want to answer personal questions on the record. She compensated by letting him comment on interviewees’ answers during some videos.

Concurrently while  _ HaruHaru Interview Corner _ was being recorded, a backlog issue had to be addressed. MajorTV considered the first few dozen episodes too far below their standard of production to be aired. The network offered to help update the episodes through a combination of remastering and reshooting.

The larger technical crew and more advanced equipment brought these episodes closer to later ones in quality. The network brought in new co-director Takumi Sato and veteran producer Daichi Asahara to help lead the team and give the show the proper polish. The season one reshoot also fixed inconsistencies in the writing.

“[JP Studio ONE] paid for my trip to Japan so I could reshoot the Dino Cavallone scenes, which was very nice of them,” Eric York said, “Although the Nami High staff were not as excited to see me.”

“I mistakenly thought that, because they were being remade for TV, it was okay to repost the original first episodes on YouTube,” Kyoko said. This would be another hiccup in the cast’s dealings with the network. An attorney with JP Studio ONE contacted Horikochi within a few hours of the videos being posted, demanding their removal. Not wanting to ruin the show’s future before its television counterpart even aired, Kyoko complied.

“Those remakes took much less time than I thought they would,” Ryohei Sasagawa said.

That was not to say the hard work was behind them. New schedules were less flexible, which cut into school hours. Nami High administrators mercifully kept cast members’ names on record as students while allowing them indefinite absences. Those who were still of high school age had to hire tutors to make up for lost instructional time.

“Before, we just did what we wanted, not caring what anybody thought as long as we were having fun,” Yamamoto said. “But now, we had to answer to network executives.”

“There was this pride -- this sense that, wow, we made it,” Tsuna said. “Over time our expectations tempered. This was real and that meant this was real work.”

“I don’t think any of us completely regretted the decision, but I know we did not anticipate how much the show would change,” Gokudera said.

“[Reborn] would say, ‘Anything to make the show better,’” Tsuna said.

But Reborn was, apparently, particularly nonplussed. At first, he would make minor suggestions with the intention of “protecting  _ KHR! _ ’s integrity.” Not long after the next arc began, he would argue for up to two hours over various elements of the show, bringing the entire set to a standstill.

Shoichi Irie recalled a harrowing incident: Reborn had been debating cinematography with Sato, and when Sato refused to comply with Reborn’s idea, Reborn shoved a camera operator, grabbed their camera rig, and began to drag it along the floor.

There could be no doing away with Reborn -- after all, his name was in the show’s title -- but “his behavior had become untenable,” as Asahara put it. Later that same week, Asahara called a confidential meeting with Sato, Horikochi, Tsuna, Kyoko, and Reborn’s sister and recent costar Pepper Pavone, to come up with solutions for problems in the work environment.

Nothing came of it.


	5. When It Rains, It Pours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There was a disconnect between the dreams we had previously held and the reality we found ourselves in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm knocking the total down from 8 chapters to 7 because life is just like that sometimes.
> 
> thank you to the usual suspects, paige & austin.

Approaching the end of the school year, thoughts of the future stuck in castmembers’ minds. A time machine had been introduced in one of the earliest episodes; until this point, it was used as a running gag, but it would soon become the catalyst for the show’s next phase.

The Future Arc saw major characters transported 10 years into, well, the future, in search of their missing friends; only to find the world under threat by the villainous Millefiore Group, and themselves unable to return home until the threat was neutralized.

This would be the longest arc of the series, comprising nearly half the episodes.

With Eric York in the United States and Kyoya Hibari out of town for university, their availability dictated a fair portion of the shooting schedule. Hibari reportedly did not want to work on the show anymore, “But somehow, Reborn convinced him to come back,” according to Ryohei Sasagawa.

Reborn recruited his family for some of the new parts. His older sister Pepper Pavone played Lal Mirch, a world-weary veteran and Vongola ally. Their characters were not related to one another, so Pepper used stage makeup to hide the resemblance. “It worked out because Lal Mirch happened to have burn scars covering half her body,” Pepper said. Her real-life boyfriend at the time, Aaron Zieger, appeared in flashbacks and photographs as Lal Mirch’s late boyfriend Colonello.

Reborn’s aunt Ariana (Aria, in the show) Fabre and her daughter June (Uni) assumed roles -- the latter as a Millefiore hostage. Gamma -- Aria and Uni’s bodyguard -- was played by Aria’s husband Jonathan, a former college actor.

This arc finally shed light on Reborn’s character: he was secretly a 60-year-old, widowed grandfather, cursed to indefinitely inhabit the body of his teenage self, and Aria and Uni were his daughter and granddaughter, respectively. Reborn gave only Aria, co-director Takumi Sato, and producer Daichi Asahara advance knowledge.

“Reborn wrote that part of the script himself -- we had no idea the twist was coming,” Tsuna Sawada recalled. “The first time we heard it was on camera. The reactions in that moment were real.”

This scene was cut for the television broadcast.

The Future Arc was chock full of other twists. Score composer Shoichi Irie acted onscreen as a high-level Millefiore officer; halfway through the arc, he revealed himself as an undercover spy for the Vongola.

“I am not at all intimidating,” admitted the scrawny, bespectacled Irie. “So, when Reborn asked me to be the first major villain of the arc, I was like, ‘Are you sure?’” In truth, Irie’s casting was all part of the writers’ grand plan: He had been introduced in a previous one-off episode as a stranger caught in a time-travel debacle.

“Our solution was to keep Irie shrouded in shadow at first, and then when his face was finally revealed to the viewer, have him surrounded by scantily clad women,” Sato said. (Nella Dinapoli reprised her role as the Cervello solely for this scene.)

Between JP Studio ONE’s reach and Ken Okubo’s brilliant networking, finding guest actors proved fairly easy. “Because the Millefiore Group operated internationally, we wanted as diverse of a cast as we could find,” Asahara said. The diversity showed itself in characters with unique gender expression (Taji Atsumichi as Nosaru, Jun Fujioka as Daisy, Rin Takanaka as Kikyo) and characters with foreign or partly-foreign lineage (the British Upton Vernon as Spanner, the half-French Eddy Tachibana as Fran, the half-Senegalese Goro Oohara as Tazaru). Other notable newcomers included Ken’ichiro Koizumi as Genkishi, Shotaro Sakuraki as Zakuro, and Koji Samejima as the voice of Torikabuto. The Kokuyo Gang and the Varia would also return.

The character Byakuran, the big bad Millefiore Boss, went to Hide Sumiteru, known for his role as the main character’s love interest in the MajorTV series  _ Dockside _ .

“Before  _ KHR!,  _ I had only been in dramas and comedies, and never as an antagonist,” Sumiteru said. “When I was preparing for the role [of Byakuran], I had to put myself in the totally unfamiliar headspace of a villain. I thought hard: what could possibly motivate someone to do what Byakuran does? He had to be the kind of person who felt no empathy or compassion whatsoever.”

Tsuna said, “Sumiteru was a funny guy. The second the director would yell ‘Cut!’ after an intense scene, his Byakuran switch would flip off, and he’d get really concerned and ask if everyone was okay.”

“The toughest challenge with having a story take place in the future was making the environment match the setting,” Haru Miura said. “There was no way of predicting what the world might look like, or what technology we might use, in ten years.”

To best execute the vision, the team used network funds to purchase a newly-built condominium -- already complete with high-end fixtures -- in an adjacent town. This condo would function as the “secret Vongola base” where many of the day-to-day scenes took place. Set designers finished the interior as the cast shot other scenes in the forest outside Namimori and at a local shipyard.

At first, the network balked at spending so much on an untested acquisition. Then the  _ KHR! _ television show was officially announced in MajorTV’s summer lineup. The fan response was huge. Projected ratings shot up. Asahara convinced JP Studio ONE that the show was well worth the investment.

The main cast lived in the condo for months while shooting the bulk of the Future Arc -- partly for ease of commute, partly for achieving the proper lived-in feel. “Huge credit to the set designers, the cinematographers, the cameramen and the director,” Tsuna said, “For somehow making that condo look cool and futuristic and spacious when it was actually super crowded and stale.”

This living situation accommodated a demanding work schedule. On most days, castmembers would wake up before dawn, get ready, shoot their scenes, hold tutor/study sessions for a couple of hours over lunch, shoot more scenes, and then go to bed.

“After a while, we all went stir-crazy,” Takeshi Yamamoto said. “There were fights -- literal fights -- over which one of us got to leave the house to buy groceries. Like, guys, we can all go.”

Kyoko, Miura, Pepper and Nagisa slept on the floor in the condo’s smaller bedroom; Tsuna, Reborn, Gokudera, Yamamoto, Ryohei, and Bee Yamauchi shared the other bedroom. Sato slept on a futon in the common room. The rest of the cast and crew lodged elsewhere nearby.

“I like to joke that being a director is like being a babysitter, but in this case, it really was babysitting,” Sato said.

When it came time to shoot the raid on the enemy base, the crew lucked out: production had just closed on one of the network’s obstacle course game shows. Some changes in decor and a fresh coat of paint turned  _ Uh Oh! Splat! _ studio into the ever-changing industrial labyrinth the young writing team had devised.

The final phase of shooting brought the cast to the network’s film studio in Tokyo. Practical effects could only go so far; the production team needed a proper greenscreen. Tsuna and Sumiteru each experienced their first simulated flight on a tether -- “so scary,” Tsuna recalled.

_ Katekyo Hitman Reborn! _ premiered on MajorTV on June 29, 2019. Ratings firms scored the pilot episode in the 50-55% range -- remarkably high for a show of its kind.

Reborn remained at JP Studio ONE offices after shooting for the Future Arc ended, with the alleged intention of babysitting the post-production process. He was “politely, but firmly, asked to leave” after three days.

“And then, just like that, the work was done,” Hayato Gokudera said. “Do you need help with editing? No. The score? No. ADR, marketing, anything? No. The most anticlimactic thing ever.”

Resuming classes at Nami High after shooting a professional television show for eight months was, as Kyoko Sasagawa put it, “Surreal.”

“We had been absent so much, a lot of people forgot who we were,” Tsuna said. “But they knew we were on TV.”

Life quickly resumed its hectic pace as the high school third-years crammed for the university entrance exam in January. The castmates, now close friends, would gather at each other’s homes to study nearly every day after school. “Living in tight quarters on set was uncomfortable, but when we left, we missed it,” Tsuna said.

“There was a disconnect,” Miura said, “Between the dreams we had previously held and the reality we found ourselves in.” Difficult conversations had to take place -- about their future as friends, and the future of the show. Most of the main cast wanted to attend university. “And, you know, after three years of this, we were exhausted.”

“Reborn wanted so badly to keep the show going,” Gokudera said. “When more than half of us told him we wanted to leave, I think he felt betrayed. At the end of the day, though, he was outvoted.”


	6. Impact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The Curse Arc was our way of saying goodbye."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for not posting this yesterday. i got home from work and just went straight to bed, was so tired, lol.
> 
> many thanks to paige, beta-reader extraordinaire~

Only four and a half months elapsed between the  _ Katekyo Hitman Reborn!  _ television series premiere and the cast’s decision that the next arc would be their last. The series, arguably, ended almost as soon as it began.

JP Studio ONE had contracted for 250 episodes. The team needed to film just 45 more to fulfill the terms. The cast considered ending the show as it was, with the Vongola’s return to the present. They thought of renegotiating for a smaller order, or artificially stretching the content of yet-unaired episodes with recaps and bonus scenes.

“But the show had too many loose ends,” Kyoko Sasagawa said. “We hadn’t written the Future Arc finale as the end of the whole series.”

Tsuna Sawada and Reborn were credited as the main writers of the show’s final phase, The Curse of the Rainbow, later retitled Curse Arc. “The Curse Arc was our way of saying goodbye,” Tsuna said.

Reborn’s character received an offer to lift his curse. The catch: He had to ritualistically defeat (essentially, kill) the other six individuals afflicted with the same curse. Participation in the seven-way battle royale was mandatory. However, competitors were allowed to assemble their own defense teams of no more than five.

The main cast accompanied Reborn on a cross-country bus tour, visiting and fighting the other cursed souls at various locations. Along the way, they would enjoy the many unique sites of Japan, and encounter characters who were thought to have left.

Competitors included returning characters Colonello (played by Aaron Ziegel), defended by Basil (Bee Yamauchi) and Lal Mirch (Pepper Pavone); Mammon (Rosario di Rossi), defended by the Varia; and Aria (Ariana Fabre), defended by Gamma (Jonathan Fabre).

Feng Long Liuxian, a Chinese national who concurrently had a role in the MajorTV drama  _ Upon the Hill _ , played the free-spirited monk Fon; his sole defender was Kyoya Hibari, who had been suspiciously incommunicado earlier in the arc. The Ukrainian Oleh Omelchuk played the mentally unstable scientist Verde, accompanied by the Kokuyo Gang. The Canadian Ian Morris Brown played a daredevil known as Skull, and his defense team comprised of entirely new characters.

The network held a nationwide contest for teenage  _ KHR!  _ fans. The winners were given roles in the show. These fans were Enma Kozato, Adelheid Suzuki, Julie Katou, Kaoru Mizuno, Rauji Ooyama, Koyo Aoba, and Reika Nikitovna.

Suzuki and Katou had met because of their mutual love for the series and begun dating. Nikitovna watched the series to cope while her mother was dying of cancer. Kozato, who had generalized anxiety disorder and a speech impediment, identified deeply with Tsuna’s character.

“ _ KHR!  _ had made such a huge impact on not just our lives,” Suzuki said, “But the lives of many people in our generation, and we were proud to represent that.”

Their characters -- who would use the actors’ names, save for Nikitovna -- formed the Simon Family, which Co-Director Takumi Sato would describe as “a funhouse mirror version of the Vongola.”

Eventually, after a few increasingly challenging fights, Tsuna would decide to join forces with the other teams to take down the one responsible for the curse: The Checkered Man.

The cast and crew planned the arc while studying for university entrance exams, and embarked on the Monday after exams finished in January. Nary a waking moment went unrecorded. They had wanted to wrap up filming by the beginning of April, but this schedule proved unworkably tight, so the deadline moved to September.

While shooting the Future Arc, “everyone complained about feeling confined,” Sato said. “The choice to live and work in buses and hotel rooms, even after that experience, surprised me.”

Kyoko Sasagawa called the Curse Arc “a tax-deductible excuse for a fun end-of-high-school trip.” Her brother Ryohei considered it more of a bonding exercise.

“Seeing the impact of our show, everywhere we went in the country, was humbling,” Ryohei said.

No one on the show, however, could escape the pervasive sense of finality. Once this trip ended, castmembers would have to go their separate ways.

Kyoko planned to attend United International Business School in Tokyo. Hayato Gokudera and Takeshi Yamamoto were accepted to Tokyo University and would be flatmates. Haru Miura and Shoichi Irie were heading to Nagoya University in Chikusa-ku. Nagisa Okubo would go to Sendai to attend Tohoku University.

This meant that Tsuna and Kyoko, who happily dated each other throughout high school, had arrived at a crossroads. “I kept trying to discuss our relationship,” Kyoko said, “But I hardly had the chance to bring it up, and on the rare occasion that I did, he was not in the mood to address it.”

“It was ultimately my choice to stay in Namimori after high school,” Tsuna said. “Secretly, I felt a little betrayed that everyone else was leaving, as irrational as that was.”

Reborn also dragged his feet when it came to future planning. His family wanted him to attend Georgetown University in Washington, DC, USA, which was parents’ alma mater: Paul and Anita Pavone had already spoken with the Georgetown admissions office to guarantee their son’s acceptance.

Apparently, Reborn became unusually quiet as the trip went on. He would also claim he felt sick, but struggled to come up with specific symptoms when asked.

“He didn’t want to go,” Yamamoto said. “I could understand why. There’s always apprehension. But time marches on, whether we want it to or not. The only way to live is to move along with it, and hold on to our happy memories along the way.”

Indeed, time marched on. Filming concluded as scheduled. Castmembers moved to new endeavors. The post-production team expertly compiled the Curse Arc clips into a narrative in itself, and an open-ended conclusion that poignantly captured the characters’ (and actors’) transition from adolescence to adulthood.

The final season of  _ KHR! _ carried the show’s unique blend of character humor, fantastical violence and mafia-scented melodrama. But whereas the Future Arc’s tone felt downright oppressive at times, the Curse Arc saw the triumphant return of teenaged whimsy.

Showrunners and critics alike would call it the most indulgently written part of the show after the early daily life shenanigans. In fact, the show’s ratings rose slightly when the Curse Arc began airing -- in the summer of 2023.

With Reborn’s curse lifted, one burning question remained: whether Tsuna would go on to successfully lead the Vongola as intended. The final lines of dialogue struck a chord despite their seeming facetiousness:

> _ Tsuna: There [Reborn] goes, like an angel without wings. _
> 
> _ Yamamoto: You mean, like a person? _
> 
> _ Tsuna (after pausing to think): Yeah. _

The series finale of  _ KHR! _ , on April 27, 2024, drew a near-record number of viewers for MajorTV, which continues airing reruns.  _ KHR! _ remains one of the most popular streaming options on JPSOnline to this day. The show would also be translated and licensed for television syndication and streaming in Italy, Spain, Portugal, the UK, the US, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. Official  _ KHR! _ social media accounts are still actively run by JP Studio ONE agents.

“The show did more than just turn a profit for our network,” said producer Daichi Asahara. “It opened the floodgates for imitators.” JP Studio ONE was neither the only, nor the first, network to adapt a web series into a television program, but judging by  _ KHR! _ ’s success, the network certainly set a standard in the medium. The easily imitable formula inspired countless creators in a movement that has not stopped.

The series changed the lives of not just those who had the opportunity to work on it, but the lives of fans as well. What began as a game between friends had made its way into the national consciousness.


End file.
